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Israeli filmmaker Renen Schorr, founder of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School, died Wednesday at 72.

The school, which opened in 1989, was a gamechanger for Israeli cinema with alumni over the past 35 years including Nir Bergman (Broken Wings), Nadav Lapid (Synonymes), Tom Shoval (Youth), Talya Lavie (Zero Motivation) and Rama Burshtein (Fill The Void).

Schorr, who was born in Jerusalem in 1952, built his career alongside the fledgeling Israeli film industry to become a seminal figure in its development later on.

A filmmaker in his own right, his best-known work is the 1987 drama Late Summer Blues.

Set in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, it follows a group of seven high school graduates in their final summer together before being conscripted into the Israeli army.

The screenplay was inspired by Schorr’s involvement in the 1970 Senior’s Letter to Prime Minister Golda Meir – in which a group of high school students questioned...

Renen Schorr Heller, founder of Israel’s Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem, has died at the age of 72.

A statement from the School shared “the heartbreaking news of the sudden passing” of Schorr.

“His passing marks the end of an era, leaving an immeasurable legacy not only in Israeli cinema but also in the hearts of all those who had the privilege to learn from, work alongside, and be inspired by him,” read the statement.

Israeli filmmaker Schorr produced his first feature, drama Lo L’Shidur, in 1981. He made his feature directorial debut with romance Late Summer...

Festival to close with Pjer Zalica’s ‘May Labor Day’.

New film projects from Bulgarian filmmaker Stephan Komandarev and Renen Schorr, the former head of Jerusalem’s Sam Spiegel School for Film and Television, are among the 12 features selected for Sarajevo’s CineLink Work In Progress section.

The festival has also programmed the world premiere of Bosnian-Herzegovinian director Pjer Zalica’s May Labor Day as its closing film, on August 19.

Scroll down for the full list of projects

The Work In Progress strand consists of 10 fiction and two documentary projects, which will be presented to industry professionals including funders, sales agents,...

The Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School is set to launch a Series Lab with the support of Netflix and Vis Social Impact, ViacomCBS International Studios’ new cause-driven production division. Hagai Levi, the creator of “In Treatment” and “The Affair,” has joined the new program as artistic advisor.

For the last decade, the film school has been hosting a popular film lab which was founded by Renen Schorr and has become a major curator of world cinema gems. Alumni include Hungarian helmer László Nemes, director of Oscar-winning “Son of Saul;” Croatian director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović whose feature debut “Murina” won the Camera d’Or at Cannes; and Nadav Lapid who participated with “The Kindergarten Teacher.”

The program is now branching out to serialized television to help promising creators, writers and producers based in Israel connect with leading industry professionals. Mentors includes Daphna Levin and Noah Stollman (“Our Boys”).

Jsfl Series Lab...

Respected Jerusalem project lab is up and running again after two-year hiatus

Israeli filmmaker Netelie Braun has won the ninth edition of the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab for Oxygen, the tale of a mother who takes drastic action when her son volunteers for active duty in Lebanon.

It will be writer and director Braun’s first fiction feature after documentary Hope I’m In The Frame, about pioneering female director Michal Bat-Adam, and a number of short films including The Hangman, about the man who hanged Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

Braun describes the feature as ”a political film,...

Past participants have included ‘Son Of Saul’, ‘The Death Of Cinema and My Father Too’ and ‘Beginning’.

The Jerusalem Sam Spiegel International Film Lab (Jsfl) has unveiled the 12 projects selected for its 9th edition, which is running online for now due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Founded in 2011 under the auspices of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School (Jsfs), the lab traditionally selects six international and six Israeli projects.

The lab usually combines residential workshops and remote support but this year most of the programme is expected to take place online.

The first writing session will take place in December, followed...

Past participants have included ‘Son Of Saul’, ‘The Death Of Cinema and My Father Too’ and ‘Beginning’.

The Jerusalem Sam Spiegel International Film Lab (Jsfl) has unveiled the 12 projects selected for its 9th edition, which is running online for now due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Founded in 2011 under the auspices of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School (Jsfs), the lab traditionally selects six international and six Israeli projects.

The lab usually combines residential workshops and remote support but this year most of the programme is expected to take place online.

Participants include UK director Claire Oakley with English Animals, her...

The Bloom/Spiegel Film Exchange, an alliance between New York’s Ifp Marcie Bloom Fellowship in Film and the Jerusalem-based Sam Spiegel Film School and lab, has selected the nine filmmakers who will take part in its fourth edition.

The cross-cultural program will welcome Israeli filmmakers including Aalam-Warque Davidian, Margarita Belaklav, Tamar

Kay, Tal Miller, and Noa Shaham from the Sam Spiegel lab. They will be joined by Adrian Cardenas, Ben Gottlieb, Haley Anderson and Katrina Vogl from the New York-based Marcie Bloom Fellowship.

During a four-day seminar, the participants will meet with producers, directors, foreign sales agents, festival directors, programmers, poster designers, restorers and visit unique theaters and companies around the city. These meetings are meant to help them develop relationships with the film industry and encourage future collaborations.

“we started the Marcie Bloom Fellowship with the intention of bringing together a dynamic community of thoughtful, kind hearted and extremely curious filmmakers,...

Zamir, who is a producer and graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film School, replaces Renen Schorr.

Producer Aurit Zamir has been named as the new director of the Jerusalem-based Sam Spiegel International Film Lab (Jsfl), replacing Renen Schorr who created the lab in 2011 under the auspices of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School (Jsfs) which he also spearheaded.

Zamir is a graduate of the school and has been head of the entrepreneurial producing programme since 2018. She is also the co-founder of Tel Aviv-based Gum Films alongside Yoav Roeh, which she launched shortly after she graduated in 2008.

Its credits include Amichai Greenberg’s The Testament,...

Anna Nemes and Laszlo Csuja’s female body building drama won award worth $50,000.

Hungarian writer-directors Anna Nemes and Laszlo Csuja’s female body building drama Gentle Monster has scooped the top prize $50,000 prize at the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel International Film Lab (Jsfl).Beauty of the Beast (2022)[/link]

A total of 12 feature projects hailing from Brazil, Ghana, Hungary, Ireland, Georgia and Israel participated in the eighth edition of the eight-month lab.

The awards were handed out at the end of a final wrap up session in Jerusalem, running July 4-8, at which participants pitched their projects to a jury of industry professionals.

Gentle Monster revolves around...

Michael Barker, the lauded co-president and co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics, was celebrated with an honorary career tribute in Jerusalem as part of the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab.

Barker, who made his first trip to Israel to attend the event, received the Force-of-Nature in Filmmaking Award. Founded by Renen Schorr and run by producer Lior Sasson, the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab praised Barker as a “major cinematic master-builder” for the pivotal role he played in distributing Israeli films such as “Waltz With Bashir,” “The Band’s Visit,” “Footnote” and “The Gate Keepers,” and leading them to the Academy Awards.

Barker has also distributed critically acclaimed international films such as “Call Me by Your Name,” “Whiplash,” “Talk to Her” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

Aside from the tribute to Barker, the film lab gave the top award of its eighth edition to “Gentle Monster,” a project from the Hungarian...

The Israeli cinema veteran is stepping down at the end of the year.

Renen Schorr has just enjoyed his last edition of the Cannes Film Festival in his role as director of the prestigious Sam Spiegel School for Cinema and Television in Jerusalem, which he has spearheaded over the past 30 years.

The Israeli cinema industry veteran announced his departure in the Israeli press on the eve of the festival and is now on a swansong tour.

“I will be stepping down from the school in five months’ time, around November, December time,” Schorr told Screen. ”Until then I am working...

Fund launched with Dcr Finance Corp.

The Jerusalem Sam Spiegel International Film Lab (Jsfl) and Us-based Dcr Finance Corp have launched a $5m fund for projects over the next five years.

The Dcr Fund for Excellence in Films will award three prizes totalling around $500,000 to both pitched and work-in-progress project during the Jsfl every July. These will be comprised of 80% investments and 20% grants.

Two prizes will be awarded via an international jury to works in progress and a further prize will be presented to a project in development. The Fund said the amount invested in a project will depend on...

Jerusalem’s Sam Spiegel International Film Lab will honor Michael Barker, Sony Pictures Classic’s co-president and co-founder, with this year’s Force-of-Nature filmmaking award.

The accolade seeks to honor extraordinary personalities committed to the development of cinema. Barker is being recognized for his work as a “cultural master-builder” at United Artists Classics, Orion Classics, and most recently Sony Pictures Classics. Longtime Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick was presented with the inaugural award in 2018.

“Over the last 35 years, passionately as a distributor and producer, Michael Barker (along with Tom Bernard and Marcie Bloom) has opened the doors to the finest works of world cinema – from Kurosawa to Fassbinder, from Almodovar to Zhang Yimou and so many more,” said Renen Schorr, the film lab’s founder and director. “Both in art-house and in mainstream — and everything in-between — he chiefly created a cinematic and challenging dialogue between world continents and human beings.”

Barker...

Lab ran outside of the Jerusalem Film Festival this year.

The 2018 Sam Spiegel International Film Lab, which this year ran outside of the Jerusalem Film Festival due to the latter’s shift in dates, presented its top prize to Turkish director Emre Kayis and producer Olena Yershova for their project Anatolian Leopard.

The feature is set in the oldest zoo in Turkey, which in the film is undergoing privatisation with one obstacle remaining– an endangered Anatolian leopard. When the zookeeper finds the animal dead, he is determined to keep the news secret and tells the police it has escaped from its cage.

The Bloom/Spiegel Partnership, an alliance between New York’s Ifp Marcie Bloom Fellowship in Film and Jerusalem’s prestigious Sam Spiegel Film School, has selected 8 filmmakers from around the world who will participate in the program’s second edition.

This year’s participants, Alik Barsoumian, Daliso Leslie, Clare Sackler, Ostin Fam (selected by Bloom), and Dana Blankstein-Cohen, Avishay Kahana, Maya Fischer and Sol Goodman (selected by Sam Spiegel), will spend time with other directors, industry professionals, and attend screenings and events over a period of five days. Tribeca Film Festival provided passes to all participants of the Bloom/Spiegel Partnership.

“We started this program last year as a bit of an experiment and the experience was so inspiring that we have entered into a second year of the partnership. Through this program we seek to expand our community, build international friendships and enrich the next generation of filmmakers,” said Dylan Leiner and Alex Uhlmann,...

Lab also introduces Work In Progress Platform awarding cash prizes to films in postproduction.

Dieter Kosslick will receive the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab’s newly created Force-of-Nature Filmmaking Award.

The distinction wishes to acknowledge “a cultural master-builder who changed the infrastructure of world cinema.”

The Film Lab’s founding director Renen Schorr told Screen that the award will be presented to the Berlinale’s director at the beginning of the Film Lab’s international pitching platform, which is to be held independently of the Jerusalem Film Festival for the first time since the Lab’s establishment in 2011 – July 5-8.

According to Schorr, Kosslick will give a keynote speech “about his life as a ‘master-builder’ that will be highly inspirational to all Lab participants” and then stay on in Jerusalem to take part in brainstorming about a draft manifesto declaring, among other things...

Ifat Tubi departs Israeli funding programme as initiative faces uncertain future.

The associate director of Israeli funding body the Sam Spiegel International Lab, Ifat Tubi, is leaving the initiative after six years.

Israel’s former cultural attache in Los Angeles, Lior Sasson, has been named as her replacement and will guide the 7th edition of the Lab at next year’s Jerusalem Film Festival.

During her tenure, Tubi has overseen the lab’s backing of the Oscar-winning Son Of Saul, as well as popular titles One Week And A Day and Apprentice.

She commented: “After six years at the Sam Spiegel Lab, where we created one of the most prestigious platforms for young filmmakers, it’s time for me to move on. I’m proud of our achievements - helping create outstanding films, shooting in the most exotic of locations and reaching the highest peaks of our industry.”

Sasson previously oversaw the Israel Film Pavillion at the...

School teams with Arp Selection for award; Cameron Bailey, Alberto Barbera among jury.

A $500,000 film fund for first-time filmmakers has been launched in Israel for graduates of Jerusalem’s Sam Spiegel Film School.

The school has teamed up with French producer and distributor Arp Selection to invest $100,000 in one feature project a year for five years. Both partners will contribute $50,000 a year, with Arp taking French distribution rights to the project.

The winning script will be selected by an international jury comprised of Cameron Bailey, artistic director of the Toronto International Film Festival, Alberto Barbera, director of the Venice Film Festival, Michèle Halberstadt of Arp Sélection, France), and Renen Schorr, founding director of the Sam Spiegel Film School, in the first year.

They will announce their decision on March 24, 2015, as part of the School’s Silver Jubilee celebrations.

“Initiating a platform like this for our alumni is an exciting and special moment for us,” said Schorr...

The Sam Spiegel Film School is paying tribute to top Israeli producer Micha Shagrir with an event on Thursday night.

Hundreds of Israeli industry figures who have with Shagrir over the decades will attend the event which is sponsored by The Israel Film Fund, The Jerusalem Film and Television Fund, Gesher Multicultural Film Fund, the Israeli Producers Guild, the New Fund for Cinema and TV, the Israeli Film Academy and the Jerusalem Foundation.

The tribute will be held at the Cinematheque as part of the Jerusalem Film Festival.

Shagrir, who was the head of Kastel Productions, was one of the founders of the school and a former chairman of the Israel Film Fund. He is a former recipient of the Jerusalem Film Festival Life Achievement Award and the Israeli Film Academy’s Life Achievement Award.

Shagrir’s credtis include Avanti Popolo, A Matter of Size, Sayarim and The War After This War.

“Micha Shagrir is a true...

British director Mike Leigh (“Happy-Go-Lucky,” “Vera Drake,” “Secrets & Lies”) made his political opinions regarding current Israeli politics clear yesterday when he pulled out of a planned teaching trip to the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School in Jerusalem. According to London’s “Guardian,” Leigh cancelled his trip in protest over Israel’s proposed policy to require non-Jews seeking Israeli citizenship to pledge allegiance to Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state.” Leigh originally promised school director Renen Schorr he would take part in a “masters” program and a press conference but sent a letter explaining his cancellation.

Director pulls out of Jerusalem teaching trip in protest against Israel's proposed loyalty oath for new citizens, saying the controversial policy was 'the last straw'

Bafta-winning film-maker Mike Leigh has pulled out of a teaching trip to Israel due to his concern over the country's proposed loyalty oath bill.

Leigh said he was not prepared to take part in the "great masters" programme at the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School in Jerusalem. In a letter to school director Renen Schorr, he cited several of Israel's policies, including the oath, which would require non-Jews seeking Israeli citizenship to pledge allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state".

"As you know, I have always had serious misgivings about coming, but I allowed myself to be persuaded by your sincerity and your commitment," Leigh wrote. "And it is because of those special qualities of yours that I am especially sorry to have to let you down.